1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to the field of speech recognition systems, and in particular, to a proofreading tool for detecting misrecognition of closed-class vocabulary words.
2. Description of Related Art
It is hard for readers of dictated text to detect misrecognitions of function words, that is, words from the closed-class vocabularies. Closed-class vocabulary words include function words, such as determiners, quantifiers, prepositions and the like. Linguists characterize a word as belonging to a closed-class vocabulary, as just described, or as belonging to an open-class vocabulary. Open class vocabulary words include content words, such as nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs.
Research in psycholinguistics has shown that these different vocabularies appear to undergo different processing in the brain during language comprehension. In particular, there is a phenomenon known as the "invisibility" effect. The invisibility effect suggests that in some sense, the properties of closed-class words less readily intrude themselves into conscious attention; they tend toward invisibility. One of the properties that tends toward invisibility is the spelling of the closed-class word.
The invisibility effect which characterizes closed-class vocabularies makes misrecognitions of closed-class vocabularies words particularly difficult to detect, or in the metaphor of the invisibility effect, to be noticed. There is a clear need for a tool to improve detection of closed-class vocabulary misrecognitions.